About nothing

My buddy jabacue wrote a post about nothing, and since I don't really have anything about which to write, I thought that I, too, would write about nothing.

I've heard a lot of good things about Seattle, though I have never been there. I'd like to go some day.

The transmission in my truck broke. I don't know exactly what is meant by "broke," but I suspect most of my readers don't know enough about manual transmissions in 1990 F150s for it to be a critical point. The transmission was tragically and immovably broken, so the truck wouldn't move. I had it towed to my guy at the shop, and he suggested we replace it with either a used or a rebuilt transmission. I wondered about just scrapping it. He said it was worth enough to fix it and sell it if we want to. The used transmission was cheaper (by more than half, if I recall) so that's what we chose. I wonder if it was a wise decision. We picked it up on Superman's lunch break today. The sucker cost almost $1000 to repair. Labor was a large portion of the charge, as it takes a lot of work to pull and replace one of those trannies.

I like that truck, but my ardor is waning. I like it less during the hot summer months (no a/c) than I do in the winter. I have a difficult time determining when it's best to cut my losses and move on. Hey, maybe if I keep it another 10 years (or more), it will be an antique and a collector's item. We need a pickup truck, and we probably couldn't get another one in decent condition for less than $1K. Now that it has a newer tranny (67K miles on it) it is a decent truck. Not a great truck, not a pretty truck (it has never been pretty), but a decent truck.

Light has gone out to look for a job. I had to kick her butt to get her moving. She only has an hour to try, because Sproing has an appointment to see the doctor later this afternoon. He did something to hurt his right ankle. I'm not sure what happened, but he says it has something to do with being roughed up by some big mean kids. It's been a bit swollen and intermittently sore for two days. I say intermittently because sometimes he milks the injury for all it's worth, and sometimes he runs around like nothing is wrong. I think the pain is genuine, but not as intense as he makes it out to be.

But about this job thing: the child needs a job. She isn't really a child, exactly, except that she's my child. She'll be 21 next month. She'll be in her senior year when she returns to college in the fall. She has never held a traditional job. She's done some long-term babysitting and occasional house- and dog-sitting. She spent a week as a receptionist last summer, filling in at a friend's office for the vacationing receptionist. She did quite well. She is intelligent and articulate, empathetic and responsible. She'll be an asset just about anywhere she goes. She just has to get out there and try!

Yeah, Sproing got roughed up a bit on Monday. He was at his "friend's" house playing the Xbox, and some big mean kids came around to pick on them. I really have no idea what happened. My sources aren't reliable. The upshot, though, is that his bike got stolen. Pisses me off. We called the police. The only name we had was "Big Devon," but the police officer was able to get some information about him. He (the officer) called Superman later in the evening and gave him the name. They did not find the bike, but the officer suggested that Superman go to the office that handles that stuff (?) in the municipal building downtown and file a juvenile complaint. That's on the to-do list.

I'm supposed to go to Columbia tomorrow to visit the Diva. -groan- I guess I'll call her therapist and arrange a time for that. Oooh! But if I go to Columbia, I can get a Cinnabon! Life needs frosting, you know.

I was schlepping around Wal-Mart this morning and ran into one of my professors. She taught my English class last year. She's a really nice (and pretty) woman. She says she likes my new haircut. I forgot that no one from school has seen the butch dyke cut yet. She indicated that she really likes it, though. That's nice.

Now that the hair has had a few weeks to grow out, I might take a picture and post it here. I like it a little bit better now. It was uneven at first, but it grew out enough for Superman to give it a buzz with the 1" shield, bringing the top to more or less uniform length.

And that's a lot of nothing. Congratulations on reaching the end.

More criminal behavior

I know it's going to be a bad day when I am roused from my sleep because there's a police officer at the front door who needs to talk to me about my children.

I have tried to resist writing about the children recently. I'm tired of listening to myself whine and rant about them, and I imagine that at least some of you are, too. Isn't there anything happening in my life that doesn't involve Diva and Sproing's misbehavior?

What follows is some detail of the criminal activity the two of them have committed over the last two days. Continue or not, as you wish.

The dear elderly lady who lives next door (to our north) is entertaining family guests this week. Her son and his wife and children are visiting from Arkansas. I'm a bit confused about what's happening, but today their baby daughter had to undergo surgery in Greenville, the next city north of us. I'm not sure if the baby got sick after they got here, or if they came for that purpose. Anyway, they have two sons who are close in age to Diva and Sproing, and our kids have been playing with the boys for the past two days.

I took some time yesterday to get away from here. I drove to Charlotte to take care of some business with Twitch and to meet a blog buddy for dinner. Actually, the business I had with Twitch could have been conducted through the postal service, but I kinda wanted to see him anyway. My primary motivation for driving up there, though, was the chance to meet Dave. It was fantastic. He's fabulous. And yesterday I felt very good about taking that time to do something fun for myself.

Today, however, I regret being gone. Perhaps if I had been here, the kids wouldn't have ... Oh, I can "if" all day. It's useless.

Getting to the point: Yesterday my children stole $300 from the family visiting next door. Of course the kids denied it, and blamed the theft on one of the sons in the family. The father came over last night to talk to Superman about it. I wasn't home from Charlotte yet, so Superman got to deal with it by himself, again. He dragged the kids out of bed to grill them about the money. They gave him nothing but lies. Superman was sound asleep when I got home last night, but he told me about the incident this morning before he went to work.

At approximately 8:40 this morning there was a knock on my bedroom door. Sproing was there to tell me about the police officer at the front door who needed to talk to me. I got up, got dressed, took a piss, and went to face the law. I figured he was here to discuss the missing money. I was wrong.

The officer informed me that the next-door neighbor to our south (yes, the other neighbor) had observed Diva and Sproing throwing rocks at the house on the other side of her house. There were some broken windows on that woman's house. (Trying to keep the details straight: two houses down, to the south of us, are the broken windows. The woman next door, to our south, saw our kids throwing the rocks.) The victim of the vandalism called the police about it, hence Mr. Police Officer standing on my doorstep.

The officer had been lecturing Diva and Sproing about the criminal nature of their deeds. He gave me the details, telling me about possible repercussions with the law. If the victim files official juvenile offense charges, their case will go into the judicial system in some manner. A hearing? Definitely a record of the offense, with possible incarceration in the juvenile detention center. I am not sure of the details, but I will learn all about them if we go that route, won't I?

Then Mr. Police Officer explained to me (what I already knew) that as the legal guardian, I am legally responsible for their actions, since they are minors. (Minors. Hell, they are only 11 years old!) This baby Police Officer (he's in his 20s, I'm pretty sure) started blaming me for their behavior, in not so many words. He was somewhat subtle about it. He said that as their parent I am responsible to keep track of them all the time, make sure I know where they are and what they are doing at all times. I tried to tell him that we've had trouble with them, that we are getting them psychological counseling, that they sneak out, break our rules, etc. He kept "ma'am"-ing me, which made me want to dope smack him. "Well, ma'am, it's your responsibility to keep them under control." He has a point. Technically he is correct. He did his damnedest to make me feel like shit, like it was my fault that they had the freedom to walk around outside.

I called Superman. In tears. Tried to tell him about it, but I was hard to understand through all the sobbing. He came home. I'm glad he works so close to where we live.

Now, the part you've all been waiting for, this is what we did/have done/are doing for/to/about them. Their rooms are stripped down to nothing. Nothing. Sproing's bed frame is still in his room because we can't get it through the door without taking the legs off of it. It has no mattress, though. He has no toys, no clothes, no bed. It's him and an empty bed frame. Diva's room doesn't even have a bed frame, because Superman took the legs off her bed a few months ago. (She kept falling out of bed, and the bed was high enough for that to really hurt.) She no longer has a book shelf, a dresser, desk, no clothes or even empty hangers in her closet.

I have taken away their clothes. If I simply tell them to stay in their rooms, they are inclined to sneak out. If the only thing they are wearing is Dad's old t-shirt, they are much less likely to try an escape.

He has cleaned the spots of gunk off his floor, and scrubbed out two really nasty waste baskets. She has scrubbed her floor with a small rag. They are each now sitting alone in an empty room. If they do as they are told and don't give me the slightest bit of trouble, they may have their mattresses and bedding back tonight. If I get any more grief from either of them, they get a blanket and maybe a pillow.

Light and I (mostly Light) have begun to sort through their things. We are going to donate whatever toys are in good enough condition to one of the local charity thrift stores. The same for clothing and shoes. They will each keep one, maybe two pair of shoes. Diva can keep her underwear, but Sproing's underwear is being thrown away. I'll get him some new undies, but nothing like he has. He likes to wear colorful boxers, and then wears his pants low so his underwear hangs out the top. I always tell him to pull up his pants, but as soon as he walks away he shrugs 'em back down again. NO MORE!! I will buy some tighty-whities for him, emphasis on the white. No interesting colors, patterns, nuthin.

School starts in three weeks. They need new school clothes. Here's the plan: I'm going to get some plain mid-weight fabric and sew some simple dresses for her, and draw-string pants for him. No pockets. They can't hide contraband in pockets if there are no pockets. I'll get some plain t-shirts for them. They will not have access to their own clothes, at least not at first. I'm going to keep the clothing, and anything else we don't discard, locked up in Twitch's now vacant room. They will get clothing on an as-needed basis.

Superman and I walked over to talk to the nice lady with the broken windows. We apologized for the children's behavior, and told her we'd get her windows fixed. He called me a minute ago to say he's arranged with a local glazier to come give us an estimate for that. We also told her that if she decides to press formal charges against the kids, we support her in that. She seems to not want to do that, but we told her the kids are habitual offenders, and nothing we've tried so far has made much difference in their behavior, obviously. So if they have to experience all the messy legal consequences for their actions, that might be good for them. Of course, that would put more stress on us, having to also experience the messy legal consequences. I don't know. We left it up to her to decide.

Now, let's go back to the $300 theft. When Superman got home this morning to help me deal with everything, he spanked their bad behinds. In the process of all of that, we reintroduced the theft accusation. There was lots of blame shifting and denials, but they finally came out with the location of the money. One of them (he said her, she said him) put the money in the linen closet under a stack of stuff. Superman looked, and there it was: three one-hundred dollar bills. He took the money next door to our neighbor. Her son and family were at the hospital with their baby. The nice neighbor lady was so thankful that the money was returned. Of course Superman apologized that our children are such reprobates.

I'm not sure what happens next. The kids don't get anything for a while, and will have to earn the right to have anything back in their rooms. They're grounded for the rest of summer break. The details still need some tweaking. I'm open to suggestions.

Update: 9:15 p.m. Both of the little culprits are asleep on their mattresses as of now. The great thing about taking the mattress is that the kids appreciate it more when I give it back. There were a few hours this afternoon when they didn't know if they'd be sleeping on the hard floor.

Um, where was I?

More snippets. It's all I know anymore

• I deleted my MySpace page this evening. I feel so free!! I never have liked my page or profile on that site. It just didn't fit who I really am now. I set up the account right after I met C, I think. It might have been before he moved in here, even. It was set up as more of a Mommy site, but that's not primarily how I identify myself now. And I never checked the site anyway. I get mail every so often referring to MySpace, which is how I remembered it tonight. And I figured out how to cancel the account all by myself. I feel so smart and shit. 
• Diva is going to join a bowling league. Y'all, no offence or anything, but I have a prejudice against bowlers. Not so much those who go occasionally just for a night out or something. I don't know why they bother me. Perhaps I was bitten by a bowling ball as a young child. I don't like bowling alleys (the noise drives me insane) and there's just something about the kind of people who typically hang around bowling alleys that sticks in my craw. Anyway, one of Diva's friends is in this kid league that plays on Saturdays and she's begging Diva to join the league. Seems one of the other girls on the team doesn't show up regularly and they have to forfeit the games. I'm can see where this will be good for Diva. You know, being part of a team, doing positive things with friends, yada yada. I just can't stay with her at the lanes. I'll flip out and start shooting people. Naw, I wouldn't do that. I'd start correcting their grammar over the PA system. Then they'd shoot me. 
• I have tests next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I'm not ready for them. I'm supposed to be studying tonight, but damn. The blogs trapped me. 
• I got really tired yesterday afternoon when I was trying to write notes on index cards for my counseling class. I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I decided to take a little nap. I lay down at 5:30. I woke up with my alarm clock at 5:25 this morning. I felt really good when I woke up. However, I went to school early this morning to do some more studying for this counseling class. I kept falling asleep while writing up the note cards! What's up with that? I'd just had 12 hours of sleep!! I stayed awake just fine in the class, which started at 9:45. But the hour and a half before that I kept drifting off. Weird. Anyway, I have my first test in that class on Tuesday. I haven't even read one of the chapters we're being tested on. 
• I talked to Light this afternoon. She just finished up her January mini-term class today. She'll be coming home sometime soon, perhaps this weekend, then returns for the regular Spring semester early next week. It will be good to see her again. However, I have my study area set up in her bedroom. There's no room for a bed in here now. Oops. We'll have to work on that this weekend. 
• So on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have this counseling class. It's called Interviewing and Counseling, and is something of an introduction to clinical psychological counseling. Did I mention this class already? The first chapter of the book, which I have read, talks about the typical stages that new students go through as they begin to learn how to counsel. For instance, according to the book I'm supposed to be looking for one right answer to a client's problems. But there isn't only one right answer. See, I know that already. I'm then supposed to be all confused because I can't tell which of the many possible solution paths to take. Well, frankly I'm pretty much past that one, too. I usually have a sense about what kind of response is appropriate to give to someone in this or that dilemma. It's a sense, not something one can easily learn from a book. The fact that I'm 25-30 years older than most of the students in the class probably makes a huge difference. I have invaluable life experience. I do, however, have to know what the book says, know how to answer the questions on the test, and pass the damned class. The later chapters in the book are a bit more informative, thankfully.
• And I saw my therapist this afternoon. A lovely lady. I adore spending time chatting with her. I had all sorts of questions for her about the crap I'm learning in that counseling class. She blew it off, said to learn what I need to know to pass the test and not to worry too much about the stuff that doesn't make practical sense. This gal knows me pretty well. She is familiar with my abilities to talk to and listen to people. I need to be careful not to let the book learning hamper my natural abilities. Funny, too, that point is mentioned in the book! Eh. Whatever. 
• Someone snuck into my study earlier this week and got into my box of candy. I got a super good deal on my favorite boxed chocolates. Russel Stover Dark Assortment. Great stuff! One of the local drug stores had a special on Sunday and Monday only, a 12 oz. box for only $3.99. That's more than half off the MSRP. I got it Monday evening. I'm not sure who knew it was in here. I hid it at the bottom of one of the desk drawers, under a bunch of paper. I haven't touched it since I put it in there Monday, not until this evening when I went to get the box out of my drawer. It was opened. The box was covered in the cellophane wrap when I stuck it in the drawer. It wasn't covered this evening, and somebody had eaten about a third of the candies. Pisses me off! They do this to me all the time. Boundaries, people. What's mine is mine! If you want some, ask me. I might say no, I might say yes. But I won't be mad at you if you ask. Now I'm pisssed off. And guess what? There isn't a lock on the door to this room. Hell, there isn't a door to this room! This is the room C and S used to be in, and they tore the door to pieces. It has holes and dings and smudges all over it.(More boundary issues, really) Superman took the door off, intending to replace it, but we haven't gotten a new door yet. So there isn't a door here to lock. But dammit, I shouldn't have to lock the door! These monsters I live with should respect my stuff. They don't, obviously. Did I mention I'm pissed off? 
  
• I have some homework due tomorrow, so I'm gonna do that now. I'll be back as soon as I can. Maybe this weekend for a little while. I miss you all!